Bosses banned from director roles

Two Swansea bosses have been banned from being directors for a total of 17 years for breaching government regulations while running two claims management companies.

Clifford Martin Stanford, 63, has been disqualified from acting as a director for 11 years in the wake of his conduct as director of Cerys-Angharad Ltd (Cerys) and Ifonic Plc (Ifonic).

Timothy Mark Schubert, 35, has also been disqualified from acting as a director for six years in relation to his conduct as a director of Ifonic.

The order disqualifying the directors was made in the High Court on November 27, 2017. It comes after the Insolvency Service discovered members of the public had complained to Trading Standards and the Ministry of Justice (MOJ) about Cerys, which led to the MoJ conducting an investigation into the company.

Cerys took part in unfair trading practices and misled the public in sales calls regarding claims services offered, fees charged and cancellations, it emerged during the hearing. Services paid for by customers were not offered, fees were deducted from customers without their say-so and they also complained of Cerys’ failure to issue a refund of up-front fees paid.

Warnings were made by the MoJ to the firm’s bosses but no action was taken to tackle the breaches, leading to Cerys voluntarily surrendering its authorisation to provide claims management services. A probe was then launched into the activities of Ifonic by the Insolvency Service.

It took on 4,000 of Cerys’ existing clients, following the closure of the company in March 2014, and promised to honour the terms and conditions of their contracts.

Ifonic also took on a series of contracts with new clients but they also suffered the same problems as those faced by Cerys’ customers.

Complaints were lodged against Ifonic following claims they offered misleading information in sales calls, failed to address complaints and provide the service customers had paid for, taken unauthorised payments and failed to issue refunds of up-front fees to customers who had cancelled their contracts in the cooling-off period.

Ifonic failed to deal with the breaches following the MOJ warnings leading the firm to voluntarily surrender its authorisation to offer claims management services.